The New York Post is reporting that the F.B.I. supplied preternaturally suspicious Dutchman Joran van der Sloot with money he funneled toward his allegedly lethal trip to Lima, Peru. Let’s back up for a minute: van der Sloot was arrested in 2005 in conjunction with the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, an American on vacation in Aruba, where van der Sloot was living at the time. There was not enough evidence to try van der Sloot, and he and two other suspects were released. Cut to March 29 of this year: van der Sloot was arrested after allegedly promising Beth Twitty, Holloway’s mother, that “he would reveal the location of [Holloway’s] body and the circumstances surrounding her death for $25,000 in cash. He asked for $250,000 in total, the document states,” according to CNN. Now, reports have surfaced that the F.B.I., while “trying to build an extortion case,” according to the Post, actually supplied him with the $25,000 through a third party. He spent his thousands on a trip to Peru, during which, he has since admitted, he murdered a 21-year-old girl named Stephany Flores. The Post reports: “Van der Sloot has confessed to beating Flores and breaking her neck in his hotel room on May 30—the fifth anniversary of Holloway's disappearance—according to the confession he gave Peruvian police.” ABC News adds that van der Sloot told police he killed Flores because she invaded his privacy. “She had no right,” he said.

Update: According to The Washington Post, “[t]he FBI denied published reports Wednesday that it had paid thousands of dollars in a sting operation to Joran van der Sloot, a suspect in Natalee Holloway's disappearance, and put off arresting him to help build a murder case.”